Doi Pui to Doi Suthep

Photos of the hike from Doi Pui to Doi Suthep

The following photos will give you an idea of what to expect during this hike. First a short climb to a mountain top (Doi Pui), then a steep descend along a ridge to reach a coffee shop near a tribal village. After a cup of coffee you then continue through evergreen forest with big trees to finally reach the Doi Suthep temple.

Near the top of Doi Pui mountain.

Forest near the top of Doi Pui.

The signboard on top of Doi Pui shows that it is 1685 meter high.

A photo moment when reaching the highest point of the hike.

The trail goes down along a ridge.

From the ridge you will have some beautiful views over mountains and valleys.

Far away you already see the tribal village which we will visit shortly.

Beautiful valley near the tribal village.

A lot of coffee is growing here.

Signboard of the coffee shop.

This is the place to take a break and taste the local grown coffee.

When passing the village you can see how they are drying the coffee harvest.

Hiking the trail through the forest.

Forest near tribal village.

The hike from Doi Pui to Doi Suthep is down hill most of the way.

Many trees are big, but some are real big.

It’s quite dark in this evergreen forest.

If after the hike you still have energy left you can visit the Doi Suthep temple with its golden stupa.

Hike description

The starting point of this hike is near the top of Doi Pui. There is a barrier blocking the road which leads to the top. At this barrier we start our hike.Geo-coordinates (in decimal degrees) for the starting point are:
Latitude: 18.823256°
Longitude: 98.889882°°

Here is a map of the hike.

Doi Pui to Doi Suthep hike via coffee shop.

The hike starts near a barrier which blocks the road to the top of Doi Pui. The barrier is at an altitude of about 1540 meter, while the top of Doi Pui is at 1675 meter, so the first 1.2 kilometers we will have to climb about 135 meters. Most of the rest of this 13.5 km long hike is downhill.

The summit of Doi Pui is covered with trees, so there is no good view from the top, but don’t worry, there will be good views on our way down.

From the summit we take a trail north, which soon starts following a ridge with steep slopes on both sides. This ridge offers several times excellent views; at some point you will look down on the tribal village which we will be passing later on this hike. The ridge descends quite rapidly; over the first kilometer we descend more than 200 meters.

At about 2.2 km from the summit of Doi Pui this trail ends on a road near a T-junction. The road to the right is actually the road on which we started the hike (near the barrier). We will first follow this road for about 600 meters to a coffee shop. The coffee shop looks out over a valley with a coffee plantation and serves fresh coffee. It’s a good place for a short rest and a cup of coffee.

We then walk the same 600 meter back to the T-junction where we now turn right. The road soon brings us into a tribal village where we probably can see how the villagers are drying their coffee harvest.

When we leave the village we have only covered 5 km, so we have another 8.5 km to go, mainly through lush evergreen forest. There are several junctions and crossings, so it is easy to take a wrong turn (the picture of the hike shows how we took a wrong turn which took us to a small orchard).

About 3.3 km from the tribal village we reach a point which is known as the “5-way junction”. Here we turn right. The forest in this area is very green with lots of huge trees. Eventually the trail will end near the entrance of the Doi Suthep temple, which is worth a visit if you still have the enregy to do it.

The entire hike is about 13.5 kilometers long. We started at 1540 meter and reached the highest point (Doi Pui) at 1675 meter. From there it went downhill most of the time (except in the last 2 km) and we end our hike at an elevation of about 1030 meter. Depending on your speed and how long you rest at the coffeeshop and other places, the hike will take about 5 to 5.5 hours.

Download the tracks

Here are some links to download this hike. The .kml (keyhole markup language) and .kmz files can be opened in Google Earth. The .gpx file can probably be used in your GPS device and hopefully helps to keep you on track.

To download a file, right-click the link and then save it to your computer.

How to get there?

From Chiang Mai take Huai Kaeo Road (Road 1004). This road starts at the north-west corner of the Old City. The first 3.5 km this is a straight road, but when you have passed the Chiang Mai zoo the road starts curving and going up the mountain. From the zoo after about 10.5 km the road reaches Doi Suthep temple. Continue on the same road and after about 4.5 km the road passes the Buphing palaces. About 1 km after the palace, the road reaches a junction. The road left leads to Ban Doi Pui (a tribal village), but we turn right and follow the road for another 3 km until we see a small road on our left which is blocked by a barrier. This is where the hike starts. From the old city to this barrier is about 22.5 km. (Note that the main road near the barrier continues to a camping site and another tribal village.)

If you come with your own transport it may be a good idea to park your car/bike at the Doi Suthep temple’s parking place, because that’s where the hike will end. From there you can hire a Songtaew to take you to the barrier where the hike will start.

To find the barrier, start from town and follow the red line on the map below (the blue line is the hike):

Location of the Doi Pui to Doi Suthep hike.

12 Responses to "Doi Pui to Doi Suthep"

We just did this hike with some friends. Our party included 7 Adults and 4 children. The children are 6, 5, 3 and 8 months. Let’s just say it was an adventure.

The kids all did fine. This trek isn’t difficult and without kids could easily be done in a morning. I would say if you hike a lot this is a really easy hike. The kids were all able to do the hike. (It should be noted we are an expat group living in China so our kids are used to walking.)

The only struggle we had were the two downhill sections that were significantly steep and lacked good footing. We took our time and made it down fine. The kids needed a lot of help and there were some rough moments but all in all it was not too bad.

Oh, I didn’t mention we actually didn’t do the whole trek. We cut it doen to about 7km. We took the trail up to DoiPoi and then we hiked down to the village and the coffee shop. From there we headed back up the road to the starting point.

So. . . disregard my comment that this could be done in a morning. Sorry about that. Our hike could be done in a morning. This one I can’t really speak to.

We did however appreciate all the info so that we could take the maps and use them to complete part of the route but not all.

Thanks for the very good trail. We tried it on july 3rd 2013 with our kids (smallest aged 5). We finished at the village.

FEw tips:
Could not find any information center of the park, so we just went to do this trail.
Was very hard to convince the sungathu driver to take us to the trail starting point from doi suthep temple. On the way back we had one of thevillagers take us in his truck. Cost us 500b each direction.
When reaching the summit there is crossing, need to continue to path in north direction. Later on there was a fork in coordinates n18.84355 e98.89519 we tookthe rightmost path which took us to the junction and entry road of the village.
Going down from thesummit indeed very steep but was ok.

All in all very good trail, great weather, lots of trees including bananas.
Took us 2-3h with the kids.
Have fun!

Do not try the entire hike without a GPS!
It is not a hike for beginners without the accurate directions from a GPS unit. My girlfriend and I tried it starting at the barrier. The summit was closed for the weekend so we hiked down the road to the right of the barrier which lead to the campsite then upwards to the coffee shop. We went through the village where at the end we met a 3 way crossroad, in which I think we may have taken a wrong turn to the rightmost path. We climbed down 3km through other forks where we guessed a path and wound up at an orchard, backtracking and following the opposite path that led us way off track.
Locals riding by on motorbikes were not helpful, but informed us that we were heading the wrong way, so we hiked back UP to the summit reaching it by sunset ,hoping to get a ride to our motorbike at the temple. The officers were not helpful and we climbed down on foot 4km to the palace midway from the temple where we found a ride.
We estimate we hiked over 20km trying to find our way. It was not fun to be lost…

These directions to are not suffice to get around this hike. Bring a GPS

Yes you are right. It’s difficult without GPS.
As you can see on the map on this page, we also took the wrong turn to that orchard.
Links to the GPS trail are included on this page, so it is recommended to load these in your GPS in order to follow the trail.

My girlfriend and I attempted this hike today and failed quite miserably, we were somewhat confident that we could do it without a gps if we just had printed copies of all the maps provided by Hein and our own sense of direction. We are both in our twenties and relatively fit but it was quite a struggle.

The problem started when we took a red truck, the driver said she would not take us to Ban Doi Pui because it was too far of course instead she would take us to Doi Pui, in our minds this meant we would miss out on the elevation part of the hike but since it was only about 125m we thought why not and agreed. She ended dropping of us in a village which left us somewhat confused as to where we were exactly. We asked around and got some rather confusing directions (and a roughly drawn map by a local) sending us up a stairway at the top of the village to a big Buddha statue, we were sure we were going to the wrong way but continued and kept going up the mountain althought unsure were we were.

We walked for about an hour up the mountain next to a road thinking this cant be the right way and meanwhile asking people on scooters and a Monk where we were going. I showed them the printed map and they all said we were heading towards the Doi Pui (although the driver said she dropped us there) but they pointed at the area behind the barrier. So we thought we must have taken a different route and passed it unknowingly. At the top of the mountain we were offered a lift and took it and got dropped off at the campsite. (now i realise seeing the barrier on the way to the campsite) We looked everywhere for the hiking trail as we were getting sick of walking on the road. We ended up following the road to the Coffee shop and by then we were so tired and confused we decided to turn back with another guy offering us a lift back to chiang mai.

Despite never really seeing or following the hike trail we enjoyed the area as there are barely any tourists and people are very kind along the way. But long story short get a GPS and dont hike to the barrier but drive there. (sorry for the long post)

Thank you so much for this very clear description.
If I were to start the hike from Wat doi suthep, then would I be taking the path that is on the left to the stairs (where they park the red trucks), just after the entrance

Thanks so much Hein!
Very clear descriptions and the GPS files were great (especially when this turned into a solo hike! After the coffee shop).

Went with 2 friends. Parked our bikes at Doi Suthep temple. Started at 6:30am (1 April 2016).

We did this in reverse. So from Doi Suthep, Climbed to the 5 way junction. Bought strawberries from a farm and got to hangout with tribal farmers.

Turned left from the 5 way junction and went to the coffee shop. The old lady who works there was so ill with a stomach cramps so helped her call a friend and arranged tranaport for her to get to the hospital.

Back to the trail where my 2 friends decided to quit! So I head out on my own climbing the ridge with steep slopes. This was the most beaitiful section of the hike! I was very glad to be on my own because I could enjoy the scenery and the tranquility.

Then reached the Doi Pui summit. From there climbed down to the camping site (this was the only deviation from this hiking plan by Hein). Walked on the road to the barrier. And then walked all the way to Phuping palace. At which point I had run out of water because my friends helped them selfs to my water before they decided to quit LOL. Had lunch (Grilled sweet potato, grilled eggs, water and iso tonic drink). Then walked back to Doi Suthep temple. Just 1 km before the temple a heavy rain started ( we have not had any rain in Chiang mai for more than 3 months!). Checked the mapmyrun at this time to see that I had walked 25km.

Got on the bike at Doi suthep temple to ride home.

Total distance= 26km
Total time = 8hours
Here is the full route and stats.

Just completed this hike yesterday with my wife! Thanks so much for posting the kml/kmz files, without them we would’ve been lost.

Somethings I wish I would’ve done:
– wear long pants as there were alot of overgrown areas that were very rough to walk through in shorts.
– rested at the orchard; we only took one rest stop at the coffee shop and regretted it towards the end of the hike.
– more bug repellent; the area after the Hmong village was covered with a plethora of bugs.

Somethings I did that improved the hike:
bring GPS
– download map.me a free iPhone (should be on Android android as well) app that allows you to export kml/kmz files (I recommend kmz as it takes up fast less space for the same info).